Australia, you're getting a new heavy music festival.

Start stretching those mosh legs all riff loving lunatics, because a brand new festival is coming your way. The aptly titled Good Things festival will make its inaugural run down the east coast of Australia, with none other than The Offspring and Stone Sour leading the charge. Talk about setting the bar.

But not only are the skate punk stalwarts making a welcome return to our shores for the first time since 2013, they’ll be treating Aussie fans to an end-to-end performance of their landmark 1994 album Smash. Note, cargo pants and wallet chains aren’t essential, but are strongly recommended.

All Time Low, Dropkick Murphys, Bullet For My Valentine and The Used are coming along for the ride as well, alongside Japanese outfit BABYMETAL, who are finally making their Australian debut.

Fortunately our local punk, hardcore and metal scenes also happen to be killing it at the moment and frankly, we wouldn’t be surprised if the Aussie roster gave the internationals a run for their money. The Smith Street Band, WAAX, Northlane, Tonight Alive and Ecca Vandal are just some of rip roaring crew from this side of the pond, that’ll show the big dogs how it’s done.

If Download Festival is anything to go by, the heavy music community is very hungry for festivals, which means Good Things tickets will fly out the door when they go on sale. So dust off those Docs and Vans, be on your computer at 9am on Thursday, 20th August, and get ready to wrap up the year in a spectacularly sweaty circle pit.

In this extra sweet edition of Australian Guitar, we take a deep dive into the weird and wonderful world of Australia’s unforgiving new guitar hero, Tash Sultana.

We also riff on the experimental genius of new-wave prog lord Plini, the ever-growing legacy of The Living End and the game-changing guitar tones of The Amity Affliction – in addition to some quality chats with our mates in Halestorm, Alice in Chains, Diesel, Joe Satriani and Muncie Girls.

Not to mention, we’ve packed #129 with stacks of invaluable guitar and production lessons, more gear reviews than you can hurl an overdrive pedal at, and crisp, comprehensive wrap-ups of the 2018 Melbourne Guitar Show and Splendour In The Grass.